Some old Reno pics

[Jan]

There was communication but not much if any help from Sanders. Furias was a mashup of parts from various airframes Lloyd accumulated. Haydon-Bailey's airplane, which had been crasned, provided parts and paperwork.

Hawker Fury/Sea Fury Registry - A Warbirds Resource Group Site (warbirdregistry.org)

Lloyd never really had the money to do this properly. Among other issues he could apparently never afford a crucial engine internal mod (developed by the Sanders) and kept trying to make canned non-overhauled engines work. Dreadnought and the Super Corsair could and did (occasionally) run around 4000 hp. Furias could never approach that. Cool airplane, though.

Howdy all. I've been traveling lately so just got a chance to catch up with the thread.

In regards to help Lloyd got from the Sanders with Furias, yes there was communication and A LOT of it. Eric spoke with Lloyd extensively about Furias and his other Sea Fury exploits for research he was doing.

Lloyd had most of the details of Dreadnought as its build progressed in the early 1980s. He and Frank had had discussions about the Super Corsair and the Cleveland era 4360 Corsair racers wherein Frank ultimately remarked, "what if you put that engine on a clean airframe?"

Obviously, he meant a Sea Fury. The development of Dread was fueled by the growth in popularity and sales (government in particular) of Sanders' well-known smokewinders (which connected to the F-16 via General Dynamics and their chief test pilot, Neil Anderson).

https://www.sanderssmoke.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Smokewinder-brochure.pdf

As Neal said, Lloyd didn't have that advantage. He did tell Eric that he was "a great copycat" which was his way of being self-effacing about the work he had put into Furias. Again, that work was based on his understanding of Dreadnought and his relationship with the Sanders.

[wingman]

I did not know there was that deep a relationship between Lloyd and Frank. It makes sense given that between them they operated a significant portion of America's flying Sea Furies at one time.

This was during qualifying at Reno 1984. This was the first year with paint, and I think is the year the cowling blew away, to answer Mike's question.

[wingman]

Hi Neal,
Yes, the first batch of mounts were built by Larry Burton and those three and some others used them. After Howard's airframe had been stripped down and they were test fitting the engine to the airframe Dad discovered that the engine was sitting 1/2" or 3/4" off to the left. Straight, but off centerline of the airframe. Howard's project was missing most of the stock British accessory cowling so dad had planned to build his own and decided to live with the offset to save time completing the project. The next Fury in line at that time was for Henry Haigh and on that one he cut the legs off of the Burton mount, repositioned the engine and aligned it to the airframe. Then tack welded it into place when he got it where he wanted it. We then built a jig fixture off of that mount and used that fixture for all of the mounts that we built. Building the mounts along with the other firewall forward components was one of my first jobs when I started working in the shop.

Howard wanted a simple reliable racer and Dad had the artistic license to pretty much do what he wanted to do with it. There wasn't any design consultation or engineering on the cowling- he just built it the way he thought it would work the best. He wanted the exhaust to help pull the air out from the cowling kind of like an augmenter tube.

Regarding the exhaust setup, Larry had designed and contracted Tube Technologies to build it. (side note: Tube Tech is owned by Sam Davis who owns the Miss Trinidad Yak-11) He did two versions- a "stock" setup that would work with the original Fury mounting setup and a "tuned" set which is what Howard's and Blind Man's Bluff ran. I believe these are the only two airframes that ever used it. The "tuned" set had somewhat equal length pipes for each cylinder. It was an amazing feat of packaging that Larry came up with on that one. There is argument over the benefits of that for a supercharged engine but I leave that for the engine guys to argue about.

One thing is for certain- Howard's had a unique sound to it that none of the others did. Mike Brown's 232 sounded the best at power, but Howard's at take off had a note to it that none of the others did.

Had to dig deep into the mental filing cabinet but that brought back some memories. Thanks for the question!
Ashley

Here, if I do this right, is a link to a post by Larry Burton himself about the R-3350 engine mount. Look for post number 539 (and 540 and 541).

Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD - RENO AIR RACES DISCUSSION FORUM

[Bigger Al]

I gotta read through that thread again. Such a gem!

[Matt58]

That thread was AMAZING!!!

[AE88]

Here, if I do this right, is a link to a post by Larry Burton himself about the R-3350 engine mount. Look for post number 539 (and 540 and 541).

Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD - RENO AIR RACES DISCUSSION FORUM

Thanks for the link Neal. I remember seeing that thread many years ago- fascinating background about Larry. Of all the Sea Furies, Blind Man's Bluff looked every bit a racer and Larry was obviously the pioneer in the 3350 conversion.

I went back and checked out the posts you referenced. I'd assume that the cowling in that picture was simply wrapped around for the fit check. Since they didn't actually use the original Fury cowlings, I doubt they had fabricated the mounts for it and had actually mounted it in place. Also, the wing leading edges are not installed which help locate the accessory cowlings. That is the primary area where the misalignment becomes more evident.

This is not a slam on Larry's efforts at all- it was just an issue that had to be resolved.

AE

[wingman]

It's interesting to compare Nelson's handiwork around the exhaust area with John Muszala's more stock treatment on Cottonmouth.

Cottonmouth was an absolute sensation at Reno 1988. There were always people standing around staring...

[wingman]

Ashley -- How hard is it to convert a Sea Fury from fighter to trainer versions? Cottonmouth was formerly Rick Drury's Race 43 -- that airframe seems to have gone back and forth a couple of times over the years .

It doesn't look easy...

[Jan]

Indeed... Blind Man's Bluff did look every bit a racer... (Chuck Aro photo)

[Jan]

A few fellers' talking in 1987... serious business. (Chuck Aro photo)

[Jan]

With your indulgence, I'd like folks to contribute thought-bubble captions for this picture. What do you think these two were saying to each other? Provide some words....

[AE88]

[QUOTE=wingman;n266183]

Ashley -- How hard is it to convert a Sea Fury from fighter to trainer versions? Cottonmouth was formerly Rick Drury's Race 43 -- that airframe seems to have gone back and forth a couple of times over the years .

It doesn't look easy...

Neal,
We never put a Mk20 together during my time in TX- the only one that we had in the shop was Cottonmouth in the 90's after it had changed hands a couple of times. I can't speak to the details of it but it would obviously be some significant sheet metal work. Unless someone had traded out a Mk20 fuselage aft section. The Sea Fury has a production break behind the cockpit which (in theory) would make that possible. There were a lot of airframes floating around the eighties when the majority of them were imported.

I want to think that Wally McDonnell's original "Notso Furias" (the one that burned in the hangar fire in CA) was a Mk20 that had been converted to single place with a jump seat. I clearly remember dad and Wally discussing the Mk20 horizontal stab on the project we did for him (that one became Riff Raff). Notso Furias had the larger stab and he preferred it over the smaller stock unit. I am thinking dad said that the rear cockpit structure was still in that airframe but the top had been skinned over.

Side note: Notso Furias was the first Sea Fury that dad got to fly. Would have been sometime in the mid 80's at Reno with Wally in the back seat.

AE

Edit: Looked up the registry on it- it was a target tug from Germany (Mk20 two seat). It was also the airplane that brought dad to Breckenridge for the first time when owned by Jimmie McMillan.

[wingman]

I think the Sea Fury, like most fighters, looks best as a FB11 fighter version. This was at Bakersfield in 1985.

[wingman]

Wally McDonnell was one of the good ones.

[wingman]

A nice Sea Fury.